What Is

What Is Small Business SEO?

The United States Small Business Administration (SBA) defines a small business as having at most 1,500 employees and generating less than $41.5 million annually. With over 32.5 million small businesses identified in the U.S., how does your business stand out from the rest?

That’s where search engine optimization (SEO) comes into play. Improving your SEO helps boost your visibility on search engines, allowing potential customers to easily find your website when searching for businesses like yours online.

Keep reading to learn more about small business SEO and how to rank higher in search results. In this post, we’ll cover the following:

• What is small business SEO?
• 7 best small business SEO strategies to implement in 2023
• Where to find the best small business SEO services?

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What is small business SEO?

Small business SEO is the process that focuses on improving your website for higher rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs) to grab the attention of your target audience.

Since a smaller business sometimes needs more employees behind the operations, small business SEO strategies save time and allow you and your team to focus on other company-related tasks.

7 best small business SEO strategies to implement in 2023

Generating traffic to your site is critical in growing your small business. So, it’s important to have a small business SEO strategy in place and plan within the means of your marketing budget.

Here are seven strategies to help you improve your business’s ranking position in search results:

1. Conduct relevant keyword research
2. Improve your on-page SEO
3. Optimize a mobile-friendly website
4. Improve page speed
5. Get backlinks from similar sites
6. Link all your brand social media accounts
7. Write useful content

1. Conduct relevant keyword research

Keyword research is the best way to learn more about the context of your target keyword searches. It helps you see the results when a user searches using a specific keyword on Google. Once you know what your users are searching for, you’ll know what keywords you want to focus on. 

You can use a keyword research tool like SEO.com and KeywordsFX to find algorithm-tested results for your industry and niche. The best approach for this strategy is to incorporate your keywords in your content, page titles, and meta descriptions to help improve your site’s visibility and grab users’ attention. 

2. Improve your on-page SEO

On-page SEO is one of the best strategies for your small business to improve the search engine’s ability to crawl your site and understand whether or not the content you’ve provided is relevant to a user’s search. It’s also the best way to keep up with Google’s ever-changing algorithms, which aim to understand a user’s intent better and provide relevant search results.

Optimizing your on-page elements make your site more descriptive and gives more information to Google. The best approach is to summarize the main topic of your web page with a keyword in your meta titles, meta description, and image alt texts. Using keywords and phrases in your site content proves relevancy to a search engine. 

One tool we recommend for to monitor your site’s on-page SEO is GradeMyWebsite.com. This tool analyzes your websites and assigns a grade. This grade shows a detailed summary of your on-page SEO and identifies areas that need to be improved.  This helps you find opportunities to optimize your website better.

3. Optimize a mobile-friendly website

In today’s modern world, 52.2% of site traffic comes from mobile phone searches. Mobile-friendly websites see an increase in traffic and, therefore, sales and conversions. A mobile-friendly website makes it easy for users to access your brand’s content from any device without causing any frustration or disruption.

So, it’s important that you optimize your website using mobile-friendly practices to perform better in Google rankings. Your site should also have a responsive design that adapts to the screen size of any handheld device, such as a smartphone or tablet. 

4. Improve page speed

Site performance metrics such as page load time affect search engine rankings, user experience, and conversions. In addition, it changes how consumers evaluate a company’s offerings. When it comes to performance, users have come to expect no difference between their mobile and desktop devices. That’s how lower page speeds result in higher bounce rates.

Therefore, it’s always best to monitor the technical aspect of your pages for efficiency, Even if you don’t have a lot of content on your site. The best practice is to compress large files and images to improve your responsiveness on each page. A fast website speed allows for providing valuable and informative content to your consumers quicker, maintaining their interest and leading to more sales.

5. Get backlinks from similar sites

Backlinks are essentially a “vote of confidence” from one website to another and are highly significant for small business SEO. When other websites link to yours, it tells search engines that they find value in your content, which can help improve your ranking.

Having similar businesses link to your site builds credibility as a trusted source. The best approach for this strategy is to submit your page to local listings and place your company on related directories to spread awareness of your site with URLs to visit. Google ranks websites with backlinks higher, so you want to increase the number of times other sites promote your brand. 

6. Link all your brand social media accounts

Although the primary function of social media is to increase brand awareness and promote your content, your social media profiles and YouTube videos also rank in organic search results. To that end, making them search engine friendly is essential for any effective small business SEO strategy.

Social media is also an effective channel for building backlinks. The best social media practice is incorporating the website URL to your social media biography section on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter,  and other platforms to help users quickly find your product and service information. In addition, making your logo and colors the same on each platform builds brand recognition and credibility for your company. 

7. Write useful content

Putting content creation at the forefront of your small business SEO plan will yield fresh, engaging pieces of writing that use your most valuable keywords. If your material is good, it might wow potential clients and make them want to do business with you. It’s your way into people’s minds and hearts and how you keep a good impression of your brand in their minds.

Furthermore, serving the needs of your target audience keeps them on your site longer, making Google recognize your pages as applicable. The best approach is to include content marketing strategies such as helpful descriptions, instructions, and answers to your industry’s frequently asked questions (FAQs). 

Need help with SEO for your small business?

WebFX’s SEO services help small businesses like yours stand out in overcrowded markets. We have over 500 experts ready to help you optimize your website and social media platforms to build brand awareness and increase revenue. 

So far, we’ve helped drive over $3 billion in revenue for our clients — we can do the same for you! 

Fill out a contact form for a free quote, or call us at 888-601-5359 to speak with us today! 

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